“You don’t have to get snippy,” Jenny says.
“I’m not getting snippy,” I say, fully aware of how snippy this sounds. “I’m just trying to make a point.”
“And what point is that? Doing nothing is better than something?”
“In some cases, yeah,” I say. “Sometimes it’s safer just to wait and see.”
“I’m not entirely sure what we’re waiting for,” she says. But she doesn’t move to get the phone or look up a number. So, conversation over.
On Monday, Jenny leaves for work at seven in the morning, like always. I sleep another four hours before I get up to start my own “work.” I use the term loosely here. In our home office, I am supposedly occupied with finishing my book. I quit my job as the assistant editor of our local weekly newspaper six months ago, with Jenny’s blessing, expressly for this purpose. We have a little savings and Jenny’s salary is enough to support us for now. The time off and the completion of a long project would do me good, Jenny insisted. Initially, I agreed. Mostly though, I spend my days drinking coffee, petting the cats, reading the New York Times online, and watching YouTube videos. There’s a lot of guilt. I’m not sure what good this is doing anyone.
I’m playing Get-the-String with Boomer and Travis when the doorbell rings Friday afternoon. It’s Tom Wenger. I open the door, smiling my most neighborly smile, expecting him to say the wife sent him over to see if we’d like some lemon cake as she’d made too much. Or something of that nature.
“It’s a tiger,” Tom says.
I want to be surprised by this announcement. I want to act like I don’t know what he means, appearing on my doorstep and talking about tigers here in the middle of Indiana on such a lovely spring day.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go have a look.”
In the Wengers’ yard, Tom and I join Darcy at the fence and peer into Rolson’s property.
“Do you see it?” Darcy asks, her voice wobbly with excitement.
“No,” I say. The cage is dim and still, just as it was at Sunday lunch.
“Come stand where I am,” Darcy says.
We switch places, but I can’t see any further into the enclosure. I’m about to call both Wengers out as agitators and liars when I catch a glimpse of something in the murky darkness. I can’t see all of it at once, just a wisp of orange-brown fur, maybe an eye, maybe a paw. Maybe a jagged black stripe. Then it’s gone, back into the recesses of its horrible home.
“Holy fucking fuck,” I say.
I ask the Wengers what they plan to do, what action will be taken. Neither moves their face from the fence to answer.
Back at the house, I am restless. Writing is out of the question. I feed the cats, water the plants, and take out the trash. I watch the clock and think about what it will be like when Jenny comes home and I have to tell her what I saw. Contrary to my wishes, this thing isn’t going away. It’s only getting larger, taking shape—a tiger shape. It occurs to me that a different sort of man might simply keep this new information to himself and spare his sensitive wife the agony of knowing exactly what it is that haunts her. Unfortunately, I am not that man. Jenny and I tell each other almost everything.
But I figure I can at least put the conversation off for a while.
I call Derek, a friend from journalism school who works in Bloomington, to see if he wants to meet up somewhere for drinks after he gets off work. I tell him I’m more than happy to come in to the city. He reminds me that another former classmate, Ethan, recently moved nearby—less than ten miles from me and Jenny, in fact. I feel guilty for having forgotten, for not having sought him out sooner.
The three of us make plans to meet. I send Jenny a text message: “Going out with the guys, be home late.” Though this must come as a surprise to her, she replies, “Okay! Have fun!”
And in spite of myself, I do. We talk about movies we’ve seen and IU’s basketball prospects. We reminisce just enough about the people we went to school with, the late nights we spent in the university’s dreary basement news lab, and the Cinco de Mayo party where Jenny and I first met. Derek tells the story of a colleague of his who got caught with a cache of porn on his office computer and Ethan gives me a list of albums he thinks I might enjoy. No one mentions big cats, or any other kind of wild animal for that matter.
At one point, Derek does say, “I was sorry to hear about the baby and everything.” I thank him for his concern and realize just how long it’s been since I’ve seen these guys. At least a year.
When I come in, Jenny is already asleep, curled on her side with my pillow clutched between her arms. She is by nature a cuddler, a seeker of warm spaces. I take off my clothes and slide under the blankets beside her, gently wresting the pillow from her grasp. She reaches an arm around my chest to take its place.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she murmurs, kissing my neck.
This is the way it would be with our children, too, were we to have any. Jenny would hold them close. A safe corner of the world for her family, a brood of loved ones to draw near—these are Jenny’s highest aspirations. And I keep her from them.
Jenny wants a kid. Jenny wants multiple kids. Jenny wants a minivan full of kids. And I thought I did, too, until Jenny got pregnant. Or rather, until Jenny stopped being pregnant. We say miscarriage, but by seven months along that’s not really what it is. At seven months, it’s a death. It’s the loss of someone we’d given a name and begun assigning attributes to. We’d say things like, “I hope she gets my eyes and your pleasant disposition,” or whathaveyou.
This was hard for both of us. But Jenny is an optimistic person. A stick-with-it person. A when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going person. I admire this about my wife. I am certain these are the qualities that would make her a good parent. These are not qualities I see in myself. This knowledge has made me reconsider our plans.
Jenny thinks I, like her, am still grieving, and when I’m done grieving, we’ll pick up with the baby-making where we left off. She’s right about the grief part.
For breakfast, Jenny makes buttermilk pancakes and asks how things are with Derek and Ethan. I give her the updates plus the latest gossip on others from the old group. Callen is teaching English in South Korea, Sophie is trying to sell a screenplay, Jack is engaged to a woman no one likes, and that thing in the cage is a tiger.
“A tiger?”
“It looks that way,” I say. I tell her about the day before with Tom and Darcy.
“So you saw it, then?” she asks. “You actually saw a living, breathing tiger?”
“I saw something,” I say. Suddenly though, I am not sure just what exactly it is that I saw. In my mind’s eye, the tiger-like form shifts. It’s a mangy dog. It’s a pile of gunnysacks. It’s an inflatable pool toy. I find it impossible to speak with clarity on the subject. This comes as a relief. I am an unreliable witness, unfit for further questioning.
“I can’t be certain though,” I say.
“You said a tiger.”
“Tom said a tiger. I think I was influenced by his power of suggestion. You know, like, the idea of a tiger was in my head so I saw one.”
“And now you’re not so sure.”
“Exactly.”
“But you did see something?”
“Yes,” I agree. I did see something.
“Mark, this is ridiculous,” she says. “Tiger or no tiger, we have a right to feel safe in our own neighborhood, in our own home.”
Again, I offer to just go over and ask Chet about his alleged tiger if it will make her feel better. This time she doesn’t